Is manga a japanese word

This article is about the comics or graphic novels created in Japan. For other uses, see Manga (disambiguation).

Manga
Example of a manga starring Wikipe-tan
Publishers	List of manga publishers
Publications	List of manga magazines
Creators	List of manga artists
Series	Lists of manga
Languages	Japanese
Related articles
Manfra Manhua Manhwa La nouvelle manga OEL manga

Manga (漫画, [maŋga]^[a]) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century,^[1] and the form has a long history in earlier Japanese art.^[2] The term manga is used in Japan to refer to both comics and cartooning. Outside of Japan, the word is typically used to refer to comics originally published in the country.^[3]

In Japan, people of all ages and walks of life read manga. The medium includes works in a broad range of genres: action, adventure, business and commerce, comedy, detective, drama, historical, horror, mystery, romance, science fiction and fantasy, erotica (hentai and ecchi), sports and games, and suspense, among others.^[4][5] Many manga are translated into other languages.^[6]

Since the 1950s, manga has become an increasingly major part of the Japanese publishing industry.^[7] By 1995, the manga market in Japan was valued at ¥586.4 billion ($6–7 billion),^[8] with annual sales of 1.9 billion manga books and manga magazines in Japan (equivalent to 15 issues per person).^[9] In 2020 Japan’s manga market value hit a new record of ¥612.6 billion due to the fast growth of digital manga sales as well as increase of print sales.^[10][11] In 2022 Japan’s manga market hit yet another record value of ¥675.9 billion.^[12][13] Manga have also gained a significant worldwide audience.^[14][15][16] Beginning with the late 2010s manga started massively outselling American comics.^[17][18] In 2020 the North American manga market was valued at almost $250 million.^[19] According to NPD BookScan manga made up 76% of overall comics and graphic novel sales in the US in 2021.^[20] The fast growth of the North American manga market has been attributed to manga’s wide availability on digital reading apps, book retailer chains such as Barnes & Noble and online retailers such as Amazon as well as the increased streaming of anime.^[21][22] According to Jean-Marie Bouissou, manga represented 38% of the French comics market in 2005.^[23] This is equivalent to approximately 3 times that of the United States and was valued at about €460 million ($640 million).^[24] In Europe and the Middle East, the market was valued at $250 million in 2012.^[25]

Manga stories are typically printed in black-and-white—due to time constraints, artistic reasons (as coloring could lessen the impact of the artwork)^[26] and to keep printing costs low^[27]—although some full-color manga exist (e.g., Colorful). In Japan, manga are usually serialized in large manga magazines, often containing many stories, each presented in a single episode to be continued in the next issue. A single manga story is almost always longer than a single issue from a Western comic.^[28] Collected chapters are usually republished in tankōbon volumes, frequently but not exclusively paperback books.^[29] A manga artist (mangaka in Japanese) typically works with a few assistants in a small studio and is associated with a creative editor from a commercial publishing company.^[30] If a manga series is popular enough, it may be animated after or during its run.^[31] Sometimes, manga are based on previous live-action or animated films.^[32]

Manga-influenced comics, among original works, exist in other parts of the world, particularly in those places that speak Chinese («manhua»), Korean («manhwa»), English («OEL manga»), and French («manfra»), as well as in the nation of Algeria («DZ-manga»).^[33][34]

Etymology

The word «manga» comes from the Japanese word 漫画^[35] (katakana: マンガ; hiragana: まんが), composed of the two kanji 漫 (man) meaning «whimsical or impromptu» and 画 (ga) meaning «pictures».^[36][37] The same term is the root of the Korean word for comics, «manhwa», and the Chinese word «manhua».^[38]

The word first came into common usage in the late 18th century^[39] with the publication of such works as Santō Kyōden’s picturebook Shiji no yukikai (1798),^[40][36] and in the early 19th century with such works as Aikawa Minwa’s Manga hyakujo (1814) and the celebrated Hokusai Manga books (1814–1834)^[41] containing assorted drawings from the sketchbooks of the famous ukiyo-e artist Hokusai.^[42] Rakuten Kitazawa (1876–1955) first used the word «manga» in the modern sense.^[43]

In Japanese, «manga» refers to all kinds of cartooning, comics, and animation. Among English speakers, «manga» has the stricter meaning of «Japanese comics», in parallel to the usage of «anime» in and outside Japan. The term «ani-manga» is used to describe comics produced from animation cels.^[44]

History and characteristics

According to art resource Widewalls^{[further explanation needed]} manga originated from emakimono (scrolls), Chōjū-jinbutsu-giga, dating back to the 12th century. During the Edo period (1603–1867), a book of drawings titled Toba Ehon further developed what would later be called manga.^[45][46] The word itself first came into common usage in 1798,^[39] with the publication of works such as Santō Kyōden’s picturebook Shiji no yukikai (1798),^[40][36] and in the early 19th century with such works as Aikawa Minwa’s Manga hyakujo (1814) and the Hokusai Manga books (1814–1834).^[42][47] Adam L. Kern has suggested that kibyoshi, picture books from the late 18th century, may have been the world’s first comic books. These graphical narratives share with modern manga humorous, satirical, and romantic themes.^[48] Some works were mass-produced as serials using woodblock printing.^[9] however Eastern comics are generally held separate from the evolution of Western comics and Western comic art probably originated in 17th Italy,^[49]

Writers on manga history have described two broad and complementary processes shaping modern manga. One view represented by other writers such as Frederik L. Schodt, Kinko Ito, and Adam L. Kern, stress continuity of Japanese cultural and aesthetic traditions, including pre-war, Meiji, and pre-Meiji culture and art.^[50] The other view, emphasizes events occurring during and after the Allied occupation of Japan (1945–1952), and stresses U.S. cultural influences, including U.S. comics (brought to Japan by the GIs) and images and themes from U.S. television, film, and cartoons (especially Disney).^[51]

Regardless of its source, an explosion of artistic creativity occurred in the post-war period,^[52] involving manga artists such as Osamu Tezuka (Astro Boy) and Machiko Hasegawa (Sazae-san). Astro Boy quickly became (and remains) immensely popular in Japan and elsewhere,^[53] and the anime adaptation of Sazae-san drew more viewers than any other anime on Japanese television in 2011.^[45] Tezuka and Hasegawa both made stylistic innovations. In Tezuka’s «cinematographic» technique, the panels are like a motion picture that reveals details of action bordering on slow motion as well as rapid zooms from distance to close-up shots. This kind of visual dynamism was widely adopted by later manga artists.^[54] Hasegawa’s focus on daily life and on women’s experience also came to characterize later shōjo manga.^[55] Between 1950 and 1969, an increasingly large readership for manga emerged in Japan with the solidification of its two main marketing genres, shōnen manga aimed at boys and shōjo manga aimed at girls.^[56]

In 1969 a group of female manga artists (later called the Year 24 Group, also known as Magnificent 24s) made their shōjo manga debut («year 24» comes from the Japanese name for the year 1949, the birth-year of many of these artists).^[57] The group included Moto Hagio, Riyoko Ikeda, Yumiko Ōshima, Keiko Takemiya, and Ryoko Yamagishi.^[29] Thereafter, primarily female manga artists would draw shōjo for a readership of girls and young women.^[58] In the following decades (1975–present), shōjo manga continued to develop stylistically while simultaneously evolving different but overlapping subgenres.^[59] Major subgenres include romance, superheroines, and «Ladies Comics» (in Japanese, redisu レディース, redikomi レディコミ, and josei 女性).^[60]

Modern shōjo manga romance features love as a major theme set into emotionally intense narratives of self-realization.^[61] With the superheroines, shōjo manga saw releases such as Pink Hanamori’s Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch, Reiko Yoshida’s Tokyo Mew Mew, and Naoko Takeuchi’s Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon, which became internationally popular in both manga and anime formats.^[62] Groups (or sentais) of girls working together have also been popular within this genre. Like Lucia, Hanon, and Rina singing together, and Sailor Moon, Sailor Mercury, Sailor Mars, Sailor Jupiter, and Sailor Venus working together.^[63]

Manga for male readers sub-divides according to the age of its intended readership: boys up to 18 years old (shōnen manga) and young men 18 to 30 years old (seinen manga);^[64] as well as by content, including action-adventure often involving male heroes, slapstick humor, themes of honor, and sometimes explicit sex.^[65] The Japanese use different kanji for two closely allied meanings of «seinen»—青年 for «youth, young man» and 成年 for «adult, majority»—the second referring to pornographic manga aimed at grown men and also called seijin («adult» 成人) manga.^[66] Shōnen, seinen, and seijin manga share a number of features in common.

Boys and young men became some of the earliest readers of manga after World War II. From the 1950s on, shōnen manga focused on topics thought to interest the archetypal boy, including subjects like robots, space-travel, and heroic action-adventure.^[67] Popular themes include science fiction, technology, sports, and supernatural settings. Manga with solitary costumed superheroes like Superman, Batman, and Spider-Man generally did not become as popular.^[68]

The role of girls and women in manga produced for male readers has evolved considerably over time to include those featuring single pretty girls (bishōjo)^[69] such as Belldandy from Oh My Goddess!, stories where such girls and women surround the hero, as in Negima and Hanaukyo Maid Team, or groups of heavily armed female warriors (sentō bishōjo)^[70]

With the relaxation of censorship in Japan in the 1990s, an assortment of explicit sexual material appeared in manga intended for male readers, and correspondingly continued into the English translations.^[71] In 2010, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government considered a bill to restrict minors’ access to such content.^{[72][needs update]}

The gekiga style of storytelling—thematically somber, adult-oriented, and sometimes deeply violent—focuses on the day-in, day-out grim realities of life, often drawn in a gritty and unvarnished fashion.^[73][74] Gekiga such as Sampei Shirato’s 1959–1962 Chronicles of a Ninja’s Military Accomplishments (Ninja Bugeichō) arose in the late 1950s and 1960s partly from left-wing student and working-class political activism,^[75] and partly from the aesthetic dissatisfaction of young manga artists like Yoshihiro Tatsumi with existing manga.^[76]

Publications and exhibition

In Japan, manga constituted an annual 40.6 billion yen (approximately US$395 million) publication-industry by 2007.^[78] In 2006 sales of manga books made up for about 27% of total book-sales, and sale of manga magazines, for 20% of total magazine-sales.^[79] The manga industry has expanded worldwide, where distribution companies license and reprint manga into their native languages.

Marketeers primarily classify manga by the age and gender of the target readership.^[80] In particular, books and magazines sold to boys (shōnen) and girls (shōjo) have distinctive cover-art, and most bookstores place them on different shelves. Due to cross-readership, consumer response is not limited by demographics. For example, male readers may subscribe to a series intended for female readers, and so on. Japan has manga cafés, or manga kissa (kissa is an abbreviation of kissaten). At a manga kissa, people drink coffee, read manga and sometimes stay overnight.

The Kyoto International Manga Museum maintains a very large website listing manga published in Japanese.^[81]

Magazines

Manga magazines or anthologies (漫画雑誌, manga zasshi) usually have many series running concurrently with approximately 20–40 pages allocated to each series per issue. Other magazines such as the anime fandom magazine Newtype featured single chapters within their monthly periodicals. Other magazines like Nakayoshi feature many stories written by many different artists; these magazines, or «anthology magazines», as they are also known (colloquially «phone books»), are usually printed on low-quality newsprint and can be anywhere from 200 to more than 850 pages thick. Manga magazines also contain one-shot comics and various four-panel yonkoma (equivalent to comic strips). Manga series can run for many years if they are successful. Popular shonen magazines include Weekly Shōnen Jump, Weekly Shōnen Magazine and Weekly Shōnen Sunday — Popular shoujo manga include Ciao, Nakayoshi and Ribon. Manga artists sometimes start out with a few «one-shot» manga projects just to try to get their name out. If these are successful and receive good reviews, they are continued. Magazines often have a short life.^[82]

Collected volumes

After a series has run for a while, publishers often collect the chapters and print them in dedicated book-sized volumes, called tankōbon. These can be hardcover, or more usually softcover books, and are the equivalent of U.S. trade paperbacks or graphic novels. These volumes often use higher-quality paper, and are useful to those who want to «catch up» with a series so they can follow it in the magazines or if they find the cost of the weeklies or monthlies to be prohibitive. «Deluxe» versions have also been printed as readers have gotten older and the need for something special grew. Old manga have also been reprinted using somewhat lesser quality paper and sold for 100 yen (about $1 U.S. dollar) each to compete with the used book market.

History

Kanagaki Robun and Kawanabe Kyōsai created the first manga magazine in 1874: Eshinbun Nipponchi. The magazine was heavily influenced by Japan Punch, founded in 1862 by Charles Wirgman, a British cartoonist. Eshinbun Nipponchi had a very simple style of drawings and did not become popular with many people. Eshinbun Nipponchi ended after three issues. The magazine Kisho Shimbun in 1875 was inspired by Eshinbun Nipponchi, which was followed by Marumaru Chinbun in 1877, and then Garakuta Chinpo in 1879.^[83] Shōnen Sekai was the first shōnen magazine created in 1895 by Iwaya Sazanami, a famous writer of Japanese children’s literature back then. Shōnen Sekai had a strong focus on the First Sino-Japanese War.^[84]

In 1905 the manga-magazine publishing boom started with the Russo-Japanese War,^[85] Tokyo Pakku was created and became a huge hit.^[86] After Tokyo Pakku in 1905, a female version of Shōnen Sekai was created and named Shōjo Sekai, considered the first shōjo magazine.^[87] Shōnen Pakku was made and is considered the first children’s manga magazine. The children’s demographic was in an early stage of development in the Meiji period. Shōnen Pakku was influenced from foreign children’s magazines such as Puck which an employee of Jitsugyō no Nihon (publisher of the magazine) saw and decided to emulate. In 1924, Kodomo Pakku was launched as another children’s manga magazine after Shōnen Pakku.^[86] During the boom, Poten (derived from the French «potin») was published in 1908. All the pages were in full color with influences from Tokyo Pakku and Osaka Puck. It is unknown if there were any more issues besides the first one.^[85] Kodomo Pakku was launched May 1924 by Tokyosha and featured high-quality art by many members of the manga artistry like Takei Takeo, Takehisa Yumeji and Aso Yutaka. Some of the manga featured speech balloons, where other manga from the previous eras did not use speech balloons and were silent.^[86]

Published from May 1935 to January 1941, Manga no Kuni coincided with the period of the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945). Manga no Kuni featured information on becoming a mangaka and on other comics industries around the world. Manga no Kuni handed its title to Sashie Manga Kenkyū in August 1940.^[88]

Dōjinshi

Dōjinshi, produced by small publishers outside of the mainstream commercial market, resemble in their publishing small-press independently published comic books in the United States. Comiket, the largest comic book convention in the world with around 500,000 visitors gathering over three days, is devoted to dōjinshi. While they most often contain original stories, many are parodies of or include characters from popular manga and anime series. Some dōjinshi continue with a series’ story or write an entirely new one using its characters, much like fan fiction. In 2007, dōjinshi sales amounted to 27.73 billion yen (US$245 million).^[78] In 2006 they represented about a tenth of manga books and magazines sales.^[79]

Digital manga

Thanks to the advent of the internet, there have been new ways for aspiring mangaka to upload and sell their manga online. Before, there were two main ways in which a mangaka’s work could be published: taking their manga drawn on paper to a publisher themselves, or submitting their work to competitions run by magazines.^[89]

Web manga

In recent years, there has been a rise in manga released digitally. Web manga, as it is known in Japan, has seen an increase thanks in part to image hosting websites where anyone can upload pages from their works for free. Although released digitally, almost all web manga sticks to the conventional black-and-white format despite some never getting physical publication. Pixiv is the most popular site where amateur and professional work gets published on the site. It has grown to be the most visited site for artwork in Japan.^[90] Twitter has also become a popular place for web manga with many artists releasing pages weekly on their accounts in the hope of their work getting picked up or published professionally. One of the best examples of an amateur work becoming professional is One-Punch Man which was released online and later received a professional remake released digitally and an anime adaptation soon thereafter.^[91]

Many of the big print publishers have also released digital only magazines and websites where web manga get published alongside their serialized magazines. Shogakukan for instance has two websites, Sunday Webry and Ura Sunday, that release weekly chapters for web manga and even offer contests for mangaka to submit their work. Both Sunday Webry and Ura Sunday have become one of the top web manga sites in Japan.^[92][93] Some have even released apps that teach how to draw professional manga and learn how to create them. Weekly Shōnen Jump released Jump Paint, an app that guides users on how to make their own manga from making storyboards to digitally inking lines. It also offers more than 120 types of pen tips and more than 1,000 screentones for artists to practice.^[89] Kodansha has also used the popularity of web manga to launch more series and also offer better distribution of their officially translated works under Kodansha Comics thanks in part to the titles being released digitally first before being published physically.^[94]

The rise web manga has also been credited to smartphones and computers as more and more readers read manga on their phones rather than from a print publication. While paper manga has seen a decrease over time, digital manga have been growing in sales each year. The Research Institute for Publications reports that sales of digital manga books excluding magazines jumped 27.1 percent to ¥146 billion in 2016 from the year before while sales of paper manga saw a record year-on-year decline of 7.4 percent to ¥194.7 billion. They have also said that if the digital and paper keep the same growth and drop rates, web manga would exceed their paper counterparts.^[95] In 2020 manga sales topped the ¥600 billion mark for the first time in history, beating the 1995 peak due to a fast growth of the digital manga market which rose by ¥82.7 billion from a previous year, surpassing print manga sales which have also increased.^[96][97]

Webtoons

While webtoons have caught on in popularity as a new medium for comics in Asia, Japan has been slow to adopt webtoons as the traditional format and print publication still dominate the way manga is created and consumed(although this is beginning to change). Despite this, one of the biggest webtoon publishers in the world, Comico, has had success in the traditional Japanese manga market. Comico was launched by NHN Japan, the Japanese subsidiary of Korean company, NHN Entertainment. As of now^[when?], there are only two webtoon publishers that publish Japanese webtoons: Comico and Naver Webtoon (under the name XOY in Japan). Kakao has also had success by offering licensed manga and translated Korean webtoons with their service Piccoma. All three companies credit their success to the webtoon pay model where users can purchase each chapter individually instead of having to buy the whole book while also offering some chapters for free for a period of time allowing anyone to read a whole series for free if they wait long enough.^[98] The added benefit of having all of their titles in color and some with special animations and effects have also helped them succeed. Some popular Japanese webtoons have also gotten anime adaptations and print releases, the most notable being ReLIFE and Recovery of an MMO Junkie.^[99][100]

International markets

By 2007, the influence of manga on international comics had grown considerably over the past two decades.^[101] «Influence» is used here to refer to effects on the comics markets outside Japan and to aesthetic effects on comics artists internationally.

Traditionally, manga stories flow from top to bottom and from right to left. Some publishers of translated manga keep to this original format. Other publishers mirror the pages horizontally before printing the translation, changing the reading direction to a more «Western» left to right, so as not to confuse foreign readers or traditional comics-consumers. This practice is known as «flipping».^[102] For the most part, criticism suggests that flipping goes against the original intentions of the creator (for example, if a person wears a shirt that reads «MAY» on it, and gets flipped, then the word is altered to «YAM»), who may be ignorant of how awkward it is to read comics when the eyes must flow through the pages and text in opposite directions, resulting in an experience that’s quite distinct from reading something that flows homogeneously. If the translation is not adapted to the flipped artwork carefully enough it is also possible for the text to go against the picture, such as a person referring to something on their left in the text while pointing to their right in the graphic. Characters shown writing with their right hands, the majority of them, would become left-handed when a series is flipped. Flipping may also cause oddities with familiar asymmetrical objects or layouts, such as a car being depicted with the gas pedal on the left and the brake on the right, or a shirt with the buttons on the wrong side, however these issues are minor when compared to the unnatural reading flow, and some of them could be solved with an adaptation work that goes beyond just translation and blind flipping.^[103]

Asia

Manga has highly influenced the art styles of manhwa and manhua.^[104] Manga in Indonesia is published by Elex Media Komputindo, Level Comic, M&C and Gramedia. Manga has influenced Indonesia’s original comic industry. Manga in the Philippines were imported from the US and were sold only in specialty stores and in limited copies. The first manga in Filipino language is Doraemon which was published by J-Line Comics and was then followed by Case Closed.^{[citation needed]} In 2015, Boy’s Love manga became popular through the introduction of BL manga by printing company BLACKink. Among the first BL titles to be printed were Poster Boy, Tagila, and Sprinters, all were written in Filipino. BL manga have become bestsellers in the top three bookstore companies in the Philippines since their introduction in 2015. During the same year, Boy’s Love manga have become a popular mainstream with Thai consumers, leading to television series adapted from BL manga stories since 2016.^{[citation needed]}

Europe

Manga has influenced European cartooning in a way that is somewhat different from in the U.S. Broadcast anime in France and Italy opened the European market to manga during the 1970s.^[105] French art has borrowed from Japan since the 19th century (Japonism)^[106] and has its own highly developed tradition of bande dessinée cartooning.^[107] In France, beginning in the mid-1990s,^[108] manga has proven very popular to a wide readership, accounting for about one-third of comics sales in France since 2004.^[109] By mid-2021, 75 percent of the €300 value of Culture Pass [fr] accounts given to French 18 year-olds was spent on manga.^[110] According to the Japan External Trade Organization, sales of manga reached $212.6 million within France and Germany alone in 2006.^[105] France represents about 50% of the European market and is the second worldwide market, behind Japan.^[25] In 2013, there were 41 publishers of manga in France and, together with other Asian comics, manga represented around 40% of new comics releases in the country,^[111] surpassing Franco-Belgian comics for the first time.^[112] European publishers marketing manga translated into French include Asuka, Casterman, Glénat, Kana, and Pika Édition, among others.^{[citation needed]} European publishers also translate manga into Dutch, German, Italian, and other languages. In 2007, about 70% of all comics sold in Germany were manga.^[113]

Manga publishers based in the United Kingdom include Gollancz and Titan Books.^{[citation needed]} Manga publishers from the United States have a strong marketing presence in the United Kingdom: for example, the Tanoshimi line from Random House.^{[citation needed]} In 2019 The British Museum held a mass exhibition dedicated to manga.^{[114][115][116]}

United States

Manga made their way only gradually into U.S. markets, first in association with anime and then independently.^[117] Some U.S. fans became aware of manga in the 1970s and early 1980s.^[118] However, anime was initially more accessible than manga to U.S. fans,^[119] many of whom were college-age young people who found it easier to obtain, subtitle, and exhibit video tapes of anime than translate, reproduce, and distribute tankōbon-style manga books.^[120] One of the first manga translated into English and marketed in the U.S. was Keiji Nakazawa’s Barefoot Gen, an autobiographical story of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima issued by Leonard Rifas and Educomics (1980–1982).^[121] More manga were translated between the mid-1980s and 1990s, including Golgo 13 in 1986, Lone Wolf and Cub from First Comics in 1987, and Kamui, Area 88, and Mai the Psychic Girl, also in 1987 and all from Viz Media-Eclipse Comics.^[122] Others soon followed, including Akira from Marvel Comics’ Epic Comics imprint, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind from Viz Media, and Appleseed from Eclipse Comics in 1988, and later Iczer-1 (Antarctic Press, 1994) and Ippongi Bang’s F-111 Bandit (Antarctic Press, 1995).

In the 1980s to the mid-1990s, Japanese animation, like Akira, Dragon Ball, Neon Genesis Evangelion, and Pokémon, made a bigger impact on the fan experience and in the market than manga.^[123] Matters changed when translator-entrepreneur Toren Smith founded Studio Proteus in 1986. Smith and Studio Proteus acted as an agent and translator of many Japanese manga, including Masamune Shirow’s Appleseed and Kōsuke Fujishima’s Oh My Goddess!, for Dark Horse and Eros Comix, eliminating the need for these publishers to seek their own contacts in Japan.^[124]
Simultaneously, the Japanese publisher Shogakukan opened a U.S. market initiative with their U.S. subsidiary Viz, enabling Viz to draw directly on Shogakukan’s catalogue and translation skills.^[102]

Japanese publishers began pursuing a U.S. market in the mid-1990s due to a stagnation in the domestic market for manga.^[125] The U.S. manga market took an upturn with mid-1990s anime and manga versions of Masamune Shirow’s Ghost in the Shell (translated by Frederik L. Schodt and Toren Smith) becoming very popular among fans.^[126] An extremely successful manga and anime translated and dubbed in English in the mid-1990s was Sailor Moon.^[127] By 1995–1998, the Sailor Moon manga had been exported to over 23 countries, including China, Brazil, Mexico, Australia, North America and most of Europe.^[128] In 1997, Mixx Entertainment began publishing Sailor Moon, along with CLAMP’s Magic Knight Rayearth, Hitoshi Iwaaki’s Parasyte and Tsutomu Takahashi’s Ice Blade in the monthly manga magazine MixxZine. Mixx Entertainment, later renamed Tokyopop, also published manga in trade paperbacks and, like Viz, began aggressive marketing of manga to both young male and young female demographics.^[129]

During this period, Dark Horse Manga was a major publisher of translated manga. In addition to Oh My Goddess!, the company published Akira, Astro Boy, Berserk, Blade of the Immortal, Ghost in the Shell, Lone Wolf and Cub, Yasuhiro Nightow’s Trigun and Blood Blockade Battlefront, Gantz, Kouta Hirano’s Hellsing and Drifters, Blood+, Multiple Personality Detective Psycho, FLCL, Mob Psycho 100, and Oreimo. The company received 13 Eisner Award nominations for its manga titles, and three of the four manga creators admitted to The Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame — Osamu Tezuka, Kazuo Koike, and Goseki Kojima — were published in Dark Horse translations.^[130]

In the following years, manga became increasingly popular, and new publishers entered the field while the established publishers greatly expanded their catalogues.^[131] The Pokémon manga Electric Tale of Pikachu issue #1 sold over 1 million copies in the United States, making it the best-selling single comic book in the United States since 1993.^[132] By 2008, the U.S. and Canadian manga market generated $175 million in annual sales.^[133] Simultaneously, mainstream U.S. media began to discuss manga, with articles in The New York Times, Time magazine, The Wall Street Journal, and Wired magazine.^[134] As of 2017, manga distributor Viz Media is the largest publisher of graphic novels and comic books in the United States, with a 23% share of the market.^[135] BookScan sales show that manga is one of the fastest-growing areas of the comic book and narrative fiction markets. From January 2019 to May 2019, the manga market grew 16%, compared to the overall comic book market’s 5% growth. The NPD Group noted that, compared to other comic book readers, manga readers are younger (76% under 30) and more diverse, including a higher female readership (16% higher than other comic books).^[136]
As of January 2020 manga is the second largest category in the US comic book and graphic novel market, accounting for 27% of the entire market share.^[137] During the COVID-19 pandemic some stores of the American bookseller Barnes & Noble saw up to a 500% increase in sales from graphic novel and manga sales due to the younger generations showing a high interest in the medium.^[138] Sales of print manga titles in the U.S. increased by 3.6 million units in the first quarter of 2021 compared to the same period in 2020.^[139] In 2021 24.4 million units of manga were sold in the United States. This is an increase of about 15 million(160%) more sales than in 2020.^[140][141] In 2022 most of the top-selling comic creators in the United States were mangaka.^[142] The same year manga sales saw an increase of 9%.^[143]

Localized manga

A number of artists in the United States have drawn comics and cartoons influenced by manga. As an early example, Vernon Grant drew manga-influenced comics while living in Japan in the late 1960s and early 1970s.^[144] Others include Frank Miller’s mid-1980s Ronin, Adam Warren and Toren Smith’s 1988 The Dirty Pair,^[145] Ben Dunn’s 1987 Ninja High School and Manga Shi 2000 from Crusade Comics (1997).

By the 21st century several U.S. manga publishers had begun to produce work by U.S. artists under the broad marketing-label of manga.^[146] In 2002 I.C. Entertainment, formerly Studio Ironcat and now out of business, launched a series of manga by U.S. artists called Amerimanga.^[147] In 2004 eigoMANGA launched the Rumble Pak and Sakura Pakk anthology series. Seven Seas Entertainment followed suit with World Manga.^[148] Simultaneously, TokyoPop introduced original English-language manga (OEL manga) later renamed Global Manga.^[149]

Francophone artists have also developed their own versions of manga (manfra), like Frédéric Boilet’s la nouvelle manga. Boilet has worked in France and in Japan, sometimes collaborating with Japanese artists.^[150]

Awards

The Japanese manga industry grants a large number of awards, mostly sponsored by publishers, with the winning prize usually including publication of the winning stories in magazines released by the sponsoring publisher. Examples of these awards include:

• The Akatsuka Award for humorous manga
• The Dengeki Comic Grand Prix for one-shot manga
• The Japan Cartoonists Association Award various categories
• The Kodansha Manga Award (multiple genre awards)
• The Seiun Award for best science fiction comic of the year
• The Shogakukan Manga Award (multiple genres)
• The Tezuka Award for best new serial manga
• The Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize (multiple genres)

The Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs has awarded the International Manga Award annually since May 2007.^[151]

University education

Kyoto Seika University in Japan has offered a highly competitive course in manga since 2000.^[152][153] Then, several established universities and vocational schools (専門学校: Semmon gakkou) established a training curriculum.

Shuho Sato, who wrote Umizaru and Say Hello to Black Jack, has created some controversy on Twitter. Sato says, «Manga school is meaningless because those schools have very low success rates. Then, I could teach novices required skills on the job in three months. Meanwhile, those school students spend several million yen, and four years, yet they are good for nothing.» and that, «For instance, Keiko Takemiya, the then professor of Seika Univ., remarked in the Government Council that ‘A complete novice will be able to understand where is «Tachikiri» (i.e., margin section) during four years.’ On the other hand, I would imagine that, It takes about thirty minutes to completely understand that at work.»^[154]

See also

• ACG (subculture)
• Alternative manga
• Anime
• Anime and manga fandom
• Cinema of Japan
• Cool Japan
• Culture of Japan
• Emakimono
• E-toki (horizontal, illustrated narrative form)
• Japanese language
• Japanese popular culture
• Kamishibai
• Lianhuanhua (small Chinese picture book)
• Light novel
• List of best-selling manga
• List of films based on manga
• List of licensed manga in English
• List of manga distributors
• List of manga magazines
• List of Japanese manga magazines by circulation
• Manga iconography
• Manga outside Japan
• Truyện tranh
• Manhua
• Manhwa
• Q-version (cartoonification)
• Ukiyo-e
• Visual novel
• Webtoon
• Weekly Shōnen Jump

Notes

References

Inline citations

Works cited

Further reading

• «Un poil de culture – Une introduction à l’animation japonaise» (in French). 11 July 2007. Archived from the original on 8 January 2008.
• Hattie Jones, «Manga girls: Sex, love, comedy and crime in recent boy’s manga and anime,» in Brigitte Steger and Angelika Koch (2013 eds): Manga Girl Seeks Herbivore Boy. Studying Japanese Gender at Cambridge. Lit Publisher, pp. 24–81.
• (in Italian) Marcella Zaccagnino and Sebastiano Contrari. «Manga: il Giappone alla conquista del mondo» (Archive) Limes, rivista italiana di geopolitica. 31 October 2007.
• Unser-Schutz, Giancarla (2015). «Influential or influenced? The relationship between genre, gender and language in manga». Gender and Language. 9 (2): 223–254. doi:10.1558/genl.v9i2.17331.

External links

• Manga at Curlie
• Anime and manga in Japan travel guide from Wikivoyage

Manga (in kanji 漫画; in hiragana まんが; in katakana マンガ) listen ▶, pronounced /ˈmɑŋgə/, is the Japanese word for comics (sometimes called komikku コミック) and print cartoons. In their modern form, manga date from shortly after World War II but have a long, complex background in earlier Japanese art.

In Japan, manga are widely read by people of all ages, and include a broad range of subjects including action-adventure, romance, sports and games, historical drama, comedy, science fiction and fantasy, mystery, horror, sexuality, and business and commerce. Since the 1950s, manga have steadily become a major part of the Japanese publishing industry,representing total sales of 481 billion yen in Japan in 2006 (approximately US$4.4 billion). Manga have also become increasingly popular worldwide. In 2006, the United States manga market was $175–200 million. Manga are typically printed in black-and-white, although some full-color manga exist. In Japan, manga are usually serialized in telephone book-size manga magazines, often containing many stories, each presented in a single episode to be continued in the next issue. If the series is successful, collected chapters may be republished in paperback books called tankōbon and in collectible special editions. A manga artist (mangaka in Japanese) typically works with a few assistants in a small studio and is associated with a creative editor from a commercial publishing company. If a manga series is popular enough, it may be animated after or even during its run, and serialized on television. Sometimes manga are drawn centering on previously existing live-action or animated films such as Star Wars.

When used outside Japan, the term “manga” refers specifically to comics originally published in Japan. In recent decades the manga industry has expanded worldwide through distribution companies that license and reprint manga in other languages. The largest overseas markets for Japanese comic magazines have been in Asian countries such as Thailand, Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Indonesia, and Peoples Republic of China, but since the mid-1990s it has also become popular in the West. Japanese manga has had an increasing influence on both the styles and aesthetics of comics and on the marketing of comics internationally. It has also played an important role in disseminating Japanese culture abroad, attracting young people from many countries to study Japanese and visit Japan as tourists.

Etymology

«Manga,» literally translated, means «whimsical pictures.» The word first came into common usage in the late eighteenth century with the publication of such works as the picture book «Shiji no yukikai» (1798) by Santō Kyōden (山東京伝, 1761 – 1816) and in the early nineteenth century with such works as Aikawa Minwa’s «Manga hyakujo» (1814) and the celebrated Hokusai manga containing assorted drawings from the sketchbook of the famous ukiyo-e artist Hokusai (1760 – 1849).^[1] The first to use the word «manga» in its modern sense was Rakuten Kitazawa (北澤 楽天, 1876 – 1955), the first professional cartoonist in Japan and the mentor of many younger mangaka and animators.^[2]

History and characteristics

Historians and writers on manga history differ over the extent to which the development of manga in Japan was influenced by cultural and historical events following World War II. Some emphasize the importance of exposure to U.S. cultural influences, including U.S. comics brought to Japan by the GIs and images and themes from U.S. television, film, and cartoons (especially Disney) during the U.S. Occupation of Japan (1945–1952). ^[3][4] Others such as Frederik L. Schodt,^[4][5] Kinko Ito,^[6] and Adam L. Kern^[7][8] consider manga to be a modern continuation of pre-War, Meiji, and pre-Meiji Japanese culture and aesthetic traditions.

The roots of manga can be traced to early magazines for children which appeared in the late nineteenth century, as part of the Meiji-era effort to encourage literacy. Shôjo kai («Girls’ World»), first published in 1902, began the segregation of children’s magazines along gender lines. These magazines typically included several pages of cartoons along with serialized adventure novels.^[9]

Modern manga originated during the Occupation (1945–1952) and post-Occupation years (1952–early 1960s), when a previously militaristic and ultranationalist Japan was rebuilding its political and economic infrastructure.^[4][10]. After the war, publishers in Osaka began to produce inexpensive books of manga on cheap, recycled pulp paper, known as akahon («red books») because of the red ink that was used along with black ink for a two-tone effect. Tezuka Osamu (|手塚 治虫, 1928– 1989), creator of Astro Boy, used these relatively thick (often 100 pages or more) books for a new genre he called «story manga.»

Osamu Tezuka and Machiko Hasegawa (長谷川町子, 1920 – 1992), creator of Sazae-san, were stylistic innovators who shaped the development of modern manga. Tezuka’s Astro Boy quickly achieved popularity in Japan and abroad,^[11][12] Tezuka’s «cinematographic» technique utilized panels revealing details of the action resembling slow motion, and rapid zooms from distance to close-up shots.^[4] This kind of visual dynamism was widely adopted by later manga artists.^[4] Hasegawa’s focus on daily family life and the experiences of women came to characterize later shōjo manga.^[13][14]Her comic strip was turned into a dramatic radio series in 1955 and a weekly animated television series in 1969, which was still running in 2008.

Between 1950 and 1969, as the two primary genres of manga, shōnen manga aimed at boys and shōjo manga aimed at girls^[4][15] solidified, increasingly large audiences for manga emerged in Japan.

In 1969, a group of female manga artists later called the Year 24 Group (also known as Magnificent 24s) made their shōjo manga debut (“Year 24” comes from the Japanese calendar year for 1949, when many of these artists were born).^[16][17] The group, which marked the first major entry of women artists into manga, included Hagio Moto, Riyoko Ikeda, Yumiko Oshima, Keiko Takemiya, and Ryoko Yamagishi^{[13] [4]} After 1969, shōjo manga was drawn primarily by women artists for an audience of girls and young women. ^[9] In the following decades, shōjo manga continued to develop stylistically while evolving different but overlapping subgenres.^[18] Major subgenres include romance, superheroines, and «Ladies Comics» (in Japanese, redisu レディース, redikomi レディコミ, and josei 女性).^[13][5]

In modern shōjo manga romance, love is a major theme set into emotionally intense narratives of self-realization.^[19] Shōjo manga such as Naoko Takeuchi’s Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon, which became internationally popular in both manga and anime formats, feature superheroines on a quest. ^[20][21] The theme of teams (sentai) of girls working together is also extensively developed in shōjo manga.^[22]

Boys and young men were among the earliest readers of manga after World War II.^[23] From the 1950s, shōnen manga focused on subjects thought to interest the archetypal boy, such as robots, space travel, and heroic action-adventure.^[24] Popular themes include science fiction, technology, sports,^[23] and supernatural settings. Manga with solitary costumed superheroes like Superman, Batman, and Spider-Man generally did not become as popular.^[23]

Manga for male readers can be classified by the age of its intended audience: boys up to 18 years old (shōnen manga) and young men 18- to 30-years old (seinen manga),^[25] as well as by content, including action-adventure often involving male heroes, slapstick humor, themes of honor, and sometimes explicit sexuality.^[26] The Japanese use different kanji for two closely allied meanings of «seinen»—青年 for «youth, young man» and 成年 for «adult, majority»—the second referring to sexually overt manga aimed at grown men and also called seijin («adult,» 成人) manga.^[27][28] Shōnen, seinen, and seijin manga share many features in common.

The role of girls and women in manga for male readers has evolved considerably over time to include those featuring single pretty girls (bishōjo)^[29] Belldandy from Oh My Goddess!),^[30] stories where the hero is surrounded by such girls and women (Negima and Hanaukyo Maid Team),^[31] or groups of heavily armed female warriors (sentō bishōjo)^[32]

Gekiga is an emotionally dark, often starkly realistic, and sometimes violent style of drawing that depicts the sordid aspects of life, often drawn in a coarse manner.^[33][34] Gekiga such as Sampei Shirato’s 1959-1962 Chronicles of a Ninja’s Military Accomplishments (Ninja Bugeichō) arose in the late 1950s and 1960s partly from left-wing student and working class political activism^[33][35][36] and partly from the aesthetic dissatisfaction of young manga artists like Yoshihiro Tatsumi with existing manga.^[37][38]

Publications

In 2007, sales of manga in Japan were 406.7 billion yen (US$3.71 billion), a 20 percent decline from 1996, when total sales reached 584.7 billion yen. During that time the circulation of manga magazines dropped by half. Entertainment executives are concerned because the manga industry is one of the foundations of Japanese entertainment culture. The decline is attributed to a decreasing population of young adults in Japan, and to a gradual shift away from printed books and towards digital entertainment such as video games, computer and cell phones. ^[39] Many anime movies and television series have been adapted from popular manga, and they are also licensed for use in merchandise such as clothing, accessories, toys, stationery products and digital games.

Typically, manga are first published in phone-book-sized weekly or monthly anthology manga magazines (such as Afternoon, Shonen Jump, or Hana to Yume). These anthologies often have hundreds of pages and dozens of individual storylines by multiple authors. They are printed on very cheap newsprint and are considered disposable. When a series has been running for a while, the chapters are usually collected and printed in dedicated paperback-sized volumes on higher quality paper, called tankōbon. These are similar to U.S. trade paperbacks or graphic novels, and are popular with readers who want to «catch up» with a series so they can follow it in the magazines, or who find the cost of the weeklies or monthlies prohibitive. Japanese people frequently refer to manga tankōbon as komikkusu (コミックス), from the English word «comics.»

Old manga have also been reprinted using somewhat lesser quality paper and sold for 100 yen (about $1 U.S. dollar) each to compete with the used book market.

In Japan, where coffee shops are popular, manga cafés, or manga kissa (kissa is an abbreviation of kissaten) stock hundreds of manga that their customers can read while they linger over coffee.

Aizōban and kanzenban

The most popular manga (such as Dragon Ball), are sometimes released in aizōban (愛蔵版), a more expensive collector’s edition with extra features such as unique covers created specifically for the edition, a cover made of special paper, higher quality paper, and a slipcase. Aizōban are typically printed in a limited run, increasing the value and collectibility of those few copies made. Kanzenban (完全版) is another term sometimes used to denote a special release that contains a complete collection from a series.

Bunkoban

A bunkoban (文庫版) edition is a typical Japanese novel-sized volume. These are generally A6 size (105 x 148 mm) and thicker than tankōbon, printed on thinner, much higher quality paper, and usually have a new cover designed specifically for the release. A bunko-ban contains more pages than a tankōbon, and the bunko edition of a given manga will consist of fewer volumes. If the original manga was a wide-ban release, the bunkoban release will generally have the same number of volumes. The term is commonly abbreviated to just bunko (without the -ban).

Wide-ban

A wide-ban (ワイド版 waidoban) edition is larger (A5 size) than a regular tankōbon. Many manga, particularly seinen manga and josei manga, are published in wide-ban editions after magazine serialization, and are never released in the tankōbon format that is common in shōnen manga and shōjo manga. When a series originally published in tankōbon format is re-released in wide-ban format, each volume will contain more pages than in the original edition, and the series will consist of fewer volumes.

Magazines

Books and magazines sold to boys (shōnen) and girls (shōjo) have distinctive cover art and are placed on different shelves in most bookstores. Manga magazines usually have many series running concurrently with approximately 20–40 pages allocated to each series per issue. Other magazines such as the anime fandom magazine Newtype feature single chapters within their monthly periodicals. These manga magazines, or «anthology magazines,» as they are also known (colloquially «phone books»), are usually printed on low-quality newsprint and can be anywhere from 200 to more than 850 pages long. Manga magazines also contain one-shot comics and various four-panel yonkoma (equivalent to comic strips). Successful manga series can run for many years. Manga artists sometimes enter the field with a few «one-shot» manga projects; if these receive good reviews, they are continued.

Dōjinshi

Dōjinshi are produced by small amateur publishers outside of the mainstream commercial market in a similar fashion to small-press independently published comic books in the United States. Comiket, the largest comic book convention in the world, is devoted to dōjinshi. Held in Tokyo twice a year, it attracts over 510,000 visitors. Some dōjinshi are original stories, but many are parodies of popular manga and anime series or include fictional characters from them. Dōjinshi continue with a series’ story or write an entirely new one using its characters, much like fan fiction. In 2007, sales of dōjinshi topped 27.73 billion yen (US$245 million).

Original webmanga, intended for online viewing, are drawn by enthusiasts of all levels of experience. If available in print, a webmanga can be ordered in graphic novel form.

Manga artists

As of 2006, about 3000 professional mangaka (漫画家, manga artists) were working in Japan.^[40] Some artists may study for a few years at an art college or manga school, or take on an apprenticeship with another mangaka, before entering the world of manga as a professional artist. Some, like Naoko Takeuchi, creator of Sailor Moon, enter the field without being an assistant by applying to contests run by various magazines.

Many mangaka work in independent studios with a small staff of assistants The duties of assistants vary widely; some mangaka sketch out the basics of their manga and have assistants fill in all of the details, while others use assistants only for specific things Some mangaka have no assistants at all, and prefer to do everything themselves, though it is difficult to meet the tight publishing deadlines. Most often, assistants are responsible for the backgrounds and screentones in manga, while the mangaka draws and inks the main characters. Assistants rarely help the mangaka with the plot of a manga, beyond being a «sounding board» for ideas. The influence of the editor varies from manga to manga and company to company. Editors ensure that the manga is being produced at an even pace and that deadlines are met, and may comment on the layout of the manga panels and the art to keep the manga up to company standards. They may also make story suggestions.

International markets

In recent decades the manga industry has expanded worldwide through distribution companies that license and reprint manga in other languages. This has helped to compensate for the declining readership in domestic Japanese markets. The most receptive overseas markets for Japanese comic magazines have been in Asian countries such as Thailand, Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Indonesia, and mainland China. Some of these countries have original comic industries of their own, including Taiwan («manhua»), South Korea («manhwa»)^[41][42], and the People’s Republic of China, notably Hong Kong («manhua»).^[43]. Since the creation of original comics by local artists takes time, only a few are published every year and it is more profitable to translate the large volume of existing Japanese manga into local languages. Piracy is a problem in Asian countries, where local publishers produce unlicensed copies of Japanese manga, often on cheap-quality paper, that compete with legitimate magazines.

Since 1990 Japanese manga has had an increasing influence on both the styles and aesthetics of comics and on the marketing of comics internationally.^[44][45] It has also played an important role in disseminating Japanese culture abroad, attracting young people from many countries to study Japanese and visit Japan as tourists.

Flipping and translation

Since Japanese is usually written from from top to bottom and right to left in works of fiction, manga is drawn and published this way in Japan. When various titles were first translated to other languages, the artwork and layouts were flipped and reversed in a process known as «flipping,» so that the book could be read from left-to-right. Flipping may alter the original intentions of the creator (for example, if a character wears a shirt that reads «MAY,» it reads «YAM» when flipped), and cause oddities with familiar asymmetrical objects or layouts, such as a car being depicted with gas pedal on the left and the brake on the right. Some creators (such as Akira Toriyama) did not approve of their work being modified this way, and requested that foreign versions retain the right-to-left format of the originals. Right-to-left formatting of manga has now become commonplace in North America.

Translated manga often includes cultural notes explaining details of Japanese culture that may not be familiar to foreign audiences.

Europe

The entrance of Japanese manga into Western markets was preceded by the release of anime movies and television series based on manga. During the 1970s, Italy and France began broadcasting Japanese anime cartoons as part of an effort to expand offerings on children’s television^[46]. Children who watched these shows grew up preferring Japanese animated characters to European comic book heros.

Since the mid-1990s, manga has found a wide readership in France, accounting for about one-third of comics sales there since 2004^[47][48]
According to the Japan External Trade Organization, in 2006 sales of manga reached $212.6 million in France and Germany alone.^[46] European publishers marketing manga translated into French include Glénat, Asuka, Casterman, Kana, and Pika. European publishers also translate manga into German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, Danish and Dutch. Manga publishers based in the United Kingdom include Orionbooks/Gollancz and Titan Books. U.S. manga publishers such as Random House have a strong marketing presence in the U.K.

United States

Manga were introduced gradually into U.S. markets, first in association with anime and then independently^[49]Anime was more accessible to college-age young people who found it easier to obtain, subtitle and exhibit video tapes of anime than translate, reproduce, and distribute tankōbon-style manga books.^[50] One of the first manga translated into English and marketed in the U.S. was Keiji Nakazawa’s Barefoot Gen, an autobiographical story of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima issued by Leonard Rifas and Educomics (1980-1982).^[51][52] More manga were translated between the mid-1980s and 1990s, including Golgo 13 in 1986, Lone Wolf and Cub from First Comics in 1987, and Kamui, Area 88, and Mai the Psychic Girl, also in 1987 and all from Viz Media-Eclipse Comics.^[53][54] Others soon followed, including Akira from Marvel Comics-Epic Comics and Appleseed from Eclipse Comics in 1988, and later Iczer-1 (Antarctic Press, 1994)^[55] and Ippongi Bang’s F-111 Bandit.^[56]

Japanese animation, like Akira, Dragon Ball, Neon Genesis Evangelion, and Pokémon, dominated the fan experience and the market until the mid-1990s.^[50][57][58] In 1986 translator-entrepreneur Toren Smith founded Studio Proteus. Smith and Studio Proteus acted as agent and translator of many Japanese manga, including Masamune Shirow’s Appleseed and Kōsuke Fujishima’s Oh My Goddess!, for Dark Horse and Eros Comix, eliminating the need for American publishers to seek their own contacts in Japan.^[59][60] Simultaneously, the Japanese publisher Shogakukan opened a U.S. market initiative with their U.S. subsidiary Viz, enabling Viz to draw directly on Shogakukan’s catalogue and translation skills.

In the mid-1990s, anime and manga versions of Masamune Shirow’s Ghost in the Shell, translated by Frederik L. Schodt and Toren Smith became popular in the United States. Another success of the mid-1990s was Sailor Moon.^[61][62] By 1995–1998, the Sailor Moon manga had been exported to over 23 countries, including China, Brazil, Mexico, Australia, most of Europe and North America.^[63] In 1998, Mixx Entertainment-TokyoPop issued U.S. manga book versions of Sailor Moon and CLAMP’s Magic Knight Rayearth. In 1996, Mixx Entertainment founded TokyoPop in the United States to publish manga in trade paperbacks and, like Viz, began aggressive marketing of manga to both young male and young female demographics.^[58][64]

As manga became increasingly popular, new publishers entered the field and established publishers greatly expanded their catalogs.^[65] By December 2007, at least 15 U.S. manga publishers had released 1,300 to 1,400 titles.^[66] Articles about manga were published in New York Times,^[67] TIME magazine,^[68] the Wall Street Journal,^[69] and Wired magazine.^[44]

Scanlation

Scanlation (also scanslation) is the unauthorized scanning, translation, editing and distribution of comics from a foreign language into the language of the distributors. The term is most often used for Japanese (manga), Korean (manhwa), and Chinese (manhua) comics. Scanlations are generally distributed for free via the Internet, either by direct download, BitTorrent or IRC. Scanlation is primarily a hobby which began as small individual efforts by manga fans and developed into a community-oriented practice.

Scanlation emerged in response to the unavailability of popular manga in many languages, and to the discrepancies between manga books published in Japan and books published in other countries. Often there is a long delay before new episodes are commercially published in other languages, and only a fraction of the episodes are made available. Some scanlations are produced because fans believe the original appeal of a manga has been compromised by commercial translators, who sometimes tone down the language, re-write jokes or make cultural changes. Scanlations are often viewed by fans as the only way to read comics that have not been licensed for release in their area. Historically, copyright holders have not requested scanlators to stop distribution before a work is licensed in the translated language, though it is technically illegal according to international copyright law. Some Japanese publishers have threatened scanlation groups with legal action. Licensing companies, such as Del Rey Manga, TOKYOPOP, and VIZ Media, have used the response to various scanlations as a factor in deciding which manga to license for translation and commercial release^[70]

Non-Japanese manga

Manga enthusiasts continue to discuss whether the term “manga” can be legitimately applied to manga-style works created by non-Japanese artists. In the U.S., manga-like comics are called «Amerimanga,» «world manga,» or «original English-language manga» (OEL manga).^[71]

A number of U.S. artists have drawn comics and cartoons influenced by manga. An early example was Vernon Grant, who drew manga-influenced comics while living in Japan in the late 1960s-early 1970s.^[72] Others include Frank Miller’s mid-1980s Ronin,^[73] Adam Warren and Toren Smith’s 1988 The Dirty Pair, Ben Dunn’s 1993 Ninja High School, Stan Sakai’s 1984 Usagi Yojimbo, and Manga Shi 2000 from Crusade Comics (1997).

In the early 2000s, several U.S. manga publishers began to market work by U.S. artists under the broad label of manga.^[74] In 2002, I.C. Entertainment, formerly Studio Ironcat and now out of business, launched a series of manga by U.S. artists called Amerimanga.^[75] Seven Seas Entertainment followed suit with World Manga.^[76] TokyoPop introduced original English-language manga (OEL manga) later renamed Global Manga.^[77] TokyoPop is currently the largest U.S. publisher of original English language manga.^[78][79][80]

France has its own highly developed tradition of bande dessinée cartooning. Francophone artists have developed their own versions of manga, such as Frédéric Boilet’s la nouvelle manga. Boilet has worked in France and in Japan, sometimes collaborating with Japanese artists.^[81]
[82]

Awards

The Japanese manga industry has a large number of awards, most sponsored by publishers who include publication in one of their magazines as part of the prize. These awards include the Akatsuka Award for humorous manga, the Dengeki Comic Grand Prix for one-shot manga, the Kodansha Manga Award (multiple genre awards), the Seiun Award for best science fiction comic of the year, the Shogakukan Manga Award (multiple genres), the Tezuka Award for best new serial manga, and the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize (multiple genres). In May 2007, the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs began awarding an annual International Manga Award. ^[83]

See also

• Anime

Notes

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Boilet, Frédéric, and Kan Takahama. Mariko Parade. Castalla-Alicante, Spain: Ponent Mon, 2004. ISBN 849334091X.
• Bouquillard, Jocelyn, and Christophe Marquet. Hokusai: First Manga Master. New York: Abrams, 2007. ISBN 0810993414.
• Drazen, Patrick. Anime Explosion!: the What? Why? & Wow! of Japanese Animation. Berkeley, CA: Stone Bridge, 2003. ISBN 9781880656723.
• Gravett, Paul. Manga: Sixty Years of Japanese Comics. NY: Harper Design. 2004. ISBN 1856693910.
• Katzenstein, Peter. J., & Takashi Shiraishi. Network Power: Japan in Asia. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997. ISBN 978-0801483738.
• Kern, Adam. Manga from the Floating World: Comicbook Culture and the Kibyōshi of Edo Japan. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 2006. ISBN 978-0674022669.
• Kinko Ito. «A history of manga in the context of Japanese culture and society.» The Journal of Popular Culture 38 (3) (February 2005). Blackwell Publishing.
• Kinsella, Sharon. Adult Manga: Culture and Power in Contemporary Japanese Society. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2000. ISBN 978-0824823184.
• Kittelson, Mary Lynn. The Soul of Popular Culture: Looking at Contemporary Heroes, Myths, and Monsters. Chicago: Open Court. 1998. ISBN 978-0812693638.
• Kodansha. Japan: Profile of a Nation, Revised Ed. Tokyo: Kodansha, 1999. ISBN 4770023847.
• Lee, William, «From Sazae-san to Crayon Shin-Chan.» In: Timothy J. Craig, (ed.) Japan Pop!: Inside the World of Japanese Popular Culture. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2000. ISBN 978-0765605610.
• Lent, John A., ed. Illustrating Asia: Comics, Humor Magazines, and Picture Books. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai’i Press, 2001. ISBN 0824824717.
• McCarthy, Helen. «Manga: A Brief History.» 500 Manga Heroes & Villains. Hauppauge, NY: Chrysalis Book Group, 2006. ISBN 978-0764132018.
• Napier, Susan J. Anime: From Akira to «Princess Mononoke.» NY: Palgrave, 2000. ISBN 0312238630.
• Patten, Fred. Watching Anime, Reading Manga: 25 Years of Essays and Reviews. Berkeley, CA: Stone Bridge Press, 2004. ISBN 978-1880656921
• Poitras, Jilles. 2001. Anime Essentials: Everything a Fan Needs to Know. Berkeley, CA: Stone Bridge. ISBN 1880656531.
• Schodt, Frederik L. Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics. Tokyo: Kodansha. 1986. ISBN 978-0870117527.
• Schodt, Frederik L. Dreamland Japan: Writings on Modern Manga. Berkeley, CA: Stone Bridge Press, 1996. ISBN 978-1880656235.
• Thompson, Jason. Manga: The Complete Guide. NY: Ballantine Books, 2007.
• Toku, Masami. Shojo Manga: Girl Power! Chico, CA: Flume Press/California State University Press, 2005, ISBN 1886226105.

Manga is a form of Japanese art that has taken the world by storm. Manga’s unique visual style and ability to tell stories in an artistically sophisticated way made it one of the most popular forms of storytelling today.

In this blog post, we’ll take a closer look at what manga is, its history, and the various demographics of manga. We’ll also provide information on how to become a manga artist.

So, whether you’re interested in becoming a manga artist or want to learn more about manga culture, there’s something for everyone here!

What is Manga?

Manga is the form of comic books and graphic novels that originated in Japan. The word manga comes from two Japanese words: «man,» which means «whimsical or impromptu,» and «ga,» which translates to «pictures.»

In Japan, the term manga refers to both comics and cartoons. However, outside Japan, it widely refers to comics originally published in Japan. 

Manga stories are usually written in black and white, making it easier for readers to process the amount of content without distraction. However, some full-color special releases do exist.

Manga is typically released in chapters published weekly or monthly and then serialized in large manga magazines. Collectively, these manga chapters are published together as tankōbon volumes, often paperback books that can be bought in bookstores or manga stores. 

Manga is closely associated with Japan’s culture and society and covers a wide range of topics such as romance, sports, science fiction, fantasy, horror, and more.

Manga was primarily aimed at a Japanese audience. However, manga has grown increasingly popular in western countries due to its unique art style and captivating storylines.

It continues to evolve, incorporating new themes and ideas, allowing manga readers to explore the various aspects of Japanese culture.

History of Manga

Manga has a long and rich history, with evidence of the art form dating back to scrolls from the 12th and 13th centuries.

During the Edo period (1603-1867), Toba Ehon was released, and the concept of manga began to take shape.

The term «manga» became popular in the late 18th century, marked by the publication of works such as Santō Kyōden’s picture book Shiji no yukikai.

In the early 19th century, two Manga books were released — Aikawa Minwa’s Manga hyakujo and Hokusai. These books featured a variety of drawings from the sketchbooks of renowned ukiyo-e artist, Hokusai, who lived from 1760–1849. 

When Rakuten Kitazawa published his work in 1876, manga became widely recognized in its current form.

Manga began to take off after World War II when Japan opened itself up to U.S. influence, and Japanese society experienced increased artistic creativity.

Works like Tezuka Osamu’s Astro Boy combined traditional manga elements with western themes such as science fiction.

Later it gained a global following due to its incorporation into anime series such as Akira Toriyama’s Dragon Ball Z and Hayao Miyazaki’s My Neighbor Totoro.

Additionally, these works brought a greater awareness of Japanese culture abroad, leading many non-Japanese readers to become fans of these stories. 

Nowadays, manga has become a global phenomenon, with print publications and digital mangas available worldwide. Manga has multiple genres, ranging from adventure and romance to horror, science fiction, and slice-of-life stories.

Now dozens of anime series based on popular mangas draw massive worldwide audiences, such as Attack on Titan, Naruto, and One Piece. There are also numerous video games based on popular mangas, further increasing fans’ interest.

Three Demographics of Manga

Manga is a diverse form of entertainment, with stories suited for all age groups and genders. Whether you’re looking for drama or adventure, manga provides it all.

Depending on its content, manga can be divided into three main demographics. These demographics are Shonen, Shoujo, and Kodomomuke manga.

Shonen Manga

The shonen manga genre is aimed at boys aged 10-18, with stories focusing on adventure, friendship, and battles. The covers of these mangas typically feature male protagonists in a dynamic action pose. 

Shonen manga stories often have an element of comedy and tend to feature many action sequences. Sometimes they also feature coming-of-age camaraderie between characters.

Dragon Ball, Naruto, and One Piece are popular shonen manga series.

Shoujo Manga

Shoujo manga is aimed at teen girls, usually aged 10-18. It usually focuses on relationships, emotions, and dramas. 

These manga stories often feature an idealized romance between protagonists and coming-of-age themes.

While not as action-packed as shonen manga, shojo manga covers tend to be decorated with pretty pinks, flowers, or other adorable images, reflecting the manga’s focus on emotion and drama.

Some popular shojo manga series include Sailor Moon, Cardcaptor Sakura, and Fruits Basket.

Kodomomuke Manga

Kodomomuke manga series are specifically designed for children, particularly those aged 4-10. These mangas often feature stories with simple plots that emphasize moral lessons. These manga series are often light-hearted, focusing on friendship and adventures. 

The art style of Kodomomuke manga is usually quite bright and colorful, featuring cute characters and comic illustrations to make the manga enjoyable to read.

Famous examples of Kodomomuke manga include Doraemon, Pokemon, and Crayon Shin-chan.

Manga Outside Japan

Manga has recently experienced tremendous growth outside Japan, increasing its popularity worldwide.

Around 40% of the French comic book market is occupied by Japanese manga, and 70% of comics sold in Germany are manga titles too.

Manga’s popularity has also seen a steady uptick in the United States. This is especially impressive compared to Japanese animation or video games, which have become more mainstream and widely accepted in U.S. culture.

Viz Media is one example of a large U.S. publisher that affiliates with Japanese publishers like Shogakukan and Shueisha to bring their material to audiences in America.

While there are fewer manga publishers in Britain than in America, most titles available come from US-based companies such as Viz Media and Kodansha Comics. 

One major factor driving this growth is the expansion of digital platforms such as Amazon Kindle and Comixology. These platforms made it easier for fans to access manga worldwide.

According to the All Japan Magazin, Book Publisher’s and Editor’s Association (AJPEA), Japan’s manga industry earned around US$5.77 billion (612.6 billion yen) in 2020.

This figure was a staggering 23% higher than what it had been in 2019. Before 2020, 1995 had seen the highest record for manga earnings, reaching 586.4 billion yen.

After experiencing a peak in the 1990s, manga is returning to its previous levels of success.

How to Become a Manga Artist

Becoming a manga artist, or «mangaka» as they are known in Japan, is an exciting career path for aspiring artists. To succeed in this field, one should possess skills and traits like creativity and artistic talent. They should also understand design principles and fundamentals of drawing.

Mangaka should be able to create unique and engaging stories with strong characters, dynamic settings, and captivating storylines. They need to be able to draw manga figures, backgrounds, and other elements in a consistent style.

Aspiring mangakas should read multiple mangas to understand and get familiarised with various manga styles and genres. This will help them to come up with unique manga stories and characters.

Manga artists should practice sketching manga figures, background elements, and other manga-related drawings. They can use tutorials or books on manga drawing techniques to do this.

Our course, «Draw a Manga Character from Scratch,» can help manga lovers create dynamic and creative characters using various techniques.

It is also essential for manga artists to network with editors or other manga artists. This will help them build connections, improve their skills and create better opportunities for themselves.

Working on one’s own manga stories and creating a portfolio of artwork can also be beneficial in showcasing their skills to potential publishers or magazines.

Dedication and hard work are essential to become a successful manga artist in Japan or abroad.

FAQs

What is the difference between anime and manga?

Manga and anime are often used interchangeably but refer to different media types.

Manga is the term given to Japanese comics and graphic novels that contain a narrative sequence. It is created by the mangaka, which illustrates the stories and plotlines.

On the other hand, anime refers to Japanese animation. Anime is typically produced in a team effort and involves writers, directors, composers, voice actors, and animators.

Manga and anime share similar visual sensibilities, as they can be hand-drawn or computer-animated. 

Ultimately, manga and anime are two separate forms of storytelling media with distinct origins and production processes. Both genres have become increasingly popular worldwide, and manga and anime fans alike can appreciate the unique stories and artwork each offers.

What is the most popular genre of manga?

Adventure manga is one of the most popular genres in manga. Manga is often associated with manga targeted at boys, but everyone widely reads it.

Adventure manga follows a protagonist’s journey as they face off against villains and defeat obstacles. Examples of this genre include Dragon Ball, Naruto, and One Piece.

What is a Korean manga called?

A Korean manga is called ‘manhwa.’ It is used for comics and print cartoons in Korea, similar to manga in Japan and ‘manhua’ in China.

Manhwa has many of the same themes as manga, with stories around action, romance, comedy, fantasy, and more.

Popular manhwa series include Noblesse, Girls of the Wild, and Tower of God. 

Manhwa is sometimes adapted into live-action films, television series, and anime. Popular example adaptations include Hwayugi (A Korean Odyssey), Goblin, and The King: Eternal Monarch.

Manhwa has also recently seen a surge in popularity, with manga fans looking for new and exciting stories. Fans have responded positively to manhwa’s unique art style and storytelling approach.

What is the difference between Japanese manga and American comics?

The main difference between Japanese manga and American comic books is the artwork. Manga typically has simple, angular drawings with small details and thin lines that evoke an atmosphere of simplicity and subdued emotion. Manga is usually printed in black and white.

On the other hand, American comics are often drawn in a more detailed and realistic style, making them visually striking but also very busy. They usually contain full-color artwork.

Manga also contains fewer words than American comics and relies more on visual storytelling. This means that manga often has a faster pace than American comic books. Japanese manga is read from right to left, which can confuse those unfamiliar with manga.

Overall, Japanese manga comics and American comics offer very different reading experiences, but both are entertaining and enjoyable in their own ways.

How to read manga?

Reading manga is different from reading traditional Western comics. In the manga, the stories are read from right to left and from top to bottom.

The story is contained within frames called ‘Koma’. To read a manga page, you start with the Koma in the top right corner and end with the Koma in the bottom left.

Manga is often incredibly fast-paced and action-packed, so it can be easy to get lost if you’re not used to reading them. But once you get the hang of it, reading manga can be a lot of fun.

Conclusion

That’s it. Now you know the basics of manga, from what it is to how to become a manga artist.

There are various genres and styles of manga available for fans to explore, so why not give them a try?

Whether you’re an experienced fan or just starting out, these Japanese comics can provide a unique and entertaining experience.

21 Draw is the perfect platform to get started if you want to become a manga creator.

Our course, “Draw a Manga Character from Scratch,” will help you create stunning manga characters. You can also learn the basics of anatomy with our «Fundamentals of Drawing» course, which will help you draw expressive and accurate characters.

If you’re looking to take your drawing skills to the next level, you can get guidance from Tony Bancroft in the course «Drawing Character Poses with Personality.»

You can also check out our entire collection of online drawing courses to further enhance your drawing skills.

Manga ( kanji : 漫画; hiragana : ま ん が; katakana : マ ン ガ^? ) Is the Japanese word for comics in general. Outside of Japan , it is used to refer to comics of Japanese origin.

Japanese manga constitutes one of the three great comic book traditions worldwide, along with the American and the French-Belgian . It covers a wide variety of genres and reaches diverse audiences. It is a very important part of the Japanese publishing market and motivates multiple adaptations to different formats: animated series, known as anime , or live-action series , films, video games and novels. Every week or month new magazines are published with deliveries of each series, in the purest style of the serial, starring heroes whose adventures in some cases seduce readers for years. ^{[ 1 ]}Since the eighties they have also conquered western markets. ^{[ 2 ]}

Terminology

Hokusai Katsushika , a representative of ukiyo-e , coined the term manga by combining the kanji for informal (漫man ) and drawing (画ga ). It is literally translated as «whimsical drawings» or «squiggles.» The Japanese also call manga «insignificant images», buying more than a billion volumes in black and white each year, printed on cheap paper. The professional who writes or draws manga is known as a mangaka . Some authors also produce their manga on video.

Currently, the word manga is used in Japan to refer to «comics», in a general way. Outside of Japan, this word is used more specifically to refer to the Japanese style of drawing and telling stories. ^{[ 3 ]}

Distinctive features

In the manga, the bullets and pages are read from right to left, most of the original manga that are translated into other languages ​​have respected this order. The most popular and recognized style of manga has other distinctive characteristics, many of them influenced by Osamu Tezuka , considered the father of modern manga. ^{[ By whom? ]}

Scott McCloud points out, for example, the traditional pre-eminence of what he calls the mask effect , that is, the graphic combination of cartoonish characters with a realistic environment, as in the clear line . ^{[ 4 ]} In manga it is common, however, that some of the characters or objects are drawn more realistically (the latter to indicate their details when necessary). ^{[ 5 ]} McCloud also detects a greater variety of transitions between panels than in Western comics, with a more substantial presence of the type he calls «aspect to aspect», in which time does not seem to advance. ^{[ 6 ]}Likewise, we must highlight the large size of the eyes of many of the characters, more typical of Western individuals than Japanese, and which has its origin in the influence that the style of the Disney franchise had on Osamu Tezuka.

Despite this, manga is very varied and not all comics are assimilable to those most popularized in the West, in fact addressing all kinds of styles and themes, and including authors of realistic drawing such as Ryōichi Ikegami , Katsuhiro Otomo or Takeshi Obata .

Story

Manga begins its life between the years 1790-1912 due to the arrival of people from the West to Japan, and this style of drawing was soon becoming more popular among the Japanese. ^{[ 7 ]} Manga is born from the combination of two traditions: that of Japanese graphic art, the product of a long evolution beginning in the 11th century , and that of western comics , established in the 19th century . It would only crystallize with the traits that we know today after World War II and the pioneering work of Osamu Tezuka .

The Japanese graphic tradition

The first characteristics of the manga can be found in the Chōjugiga (satirical drawings of animals), attributed to Toba no Sōjō (11th-12th centuries), of which scarcely a few black and white copies are currently preserved. ^{[ citation required ]}

During the Edo period , ukiyo-e developed vigorously and produced the first narratives remotely comparable to current genres of manga, ranging from history and eroticism to comedy and criticism. Hokusai , one of his figures, would introduce the use of the word manga in one of his books, Hokusai Manga , compiled throughout the 19th century . Other cartoonists, such as Gyonai Kawanabe , also stood out in this artistic period.

The satirical press of western origin (1862-)

During the 19th century , in the midst of the transition from the feudal to the industrialized era, Western artists marveled at ukiyo-e for the exotic beauty it conveyed. However, the true beginnings of modern manga were not due to the aestheticism of Edo period art , but to the expansion of European cultural influence in Japan . ^{[ 8 ]}

It was Charles Wirgman and George Bigot (both critics of Japanese society at the time) who laid the foundations for the further development of the manga. The British magazine Punch (1841) was the model for Wirgman’s The Japan Punch (1862-87) magazine , as it had previously been for other similar magazines in other countries. Furthermore, in 1877 the first foreign children’s book was published: Max and Moritz by the German Wilhelm Busch . ^{[ 9 ]}

The expansion of European comic book techniques resulted in a slow but steady production by indigenous Japanese artists, such as Kiyochika Kayashi , Takeo Nagamatsu , Ippei Okomoto , Ichiro Suzuki and above all Rakuten Kitazawa , whose cartoon Tagosaku to Mokube no Tokyo Kenbutsu『田 吾 作と 杢 兵衛 の 東京 見 物 』is considered the first manga in its modern sense. All of them served as pioneers, spreading their work through publications, such as Tokyo Puck (1905), although, as in Europe, the use of speech bubbles , which was already common in the American press since The Yellow Kid(1894), it had not yet become widespread. Since 1915 the adaptation of the manga to animation began to be tested simultaneously, which later would become the emergence of anime .

The first children’s manga (1923)

The 1920s and 1930s were very promising, with the appearance and triumph of kodomo manga (children’s comics), such as Shousei Oda / Tofujin’s The Adventures of Shochan (1923) and The Three Musketeers with Boots on Their Heads (1930) by Taisei Makino / Suimei Imoto . Curiously, the first manga-style comic to appear in Spain was a children’s comic from this time, published in number 35 bis of Bobín ^{[ 10 ]} in 1931, a month before the Second Spanish Republic was proclaimed .^[11]​

The American comic — especially Bringing up father (1913) by George McManus — is widely imitated in the 1920s, ^{[ 8 ]} which helps to implant the dialogue balloon in series such as Speed ​​Taro (1930-33) by Sako Shishido , Ogon Bat (1930, a first superhero ) by Ichiro Suzaki / Takeo Nagamatsu and The Adventures of Dankichi (1934), by Keizo Shimada , as well as the comic strip Fuku-Chan (1936-), by Ryuichi Yokohama . ^{[ 12]} By then,war comics suchasSuihou Tagawa’sNorakuro(1931-41)had emerged, as the manga was influenced by militaristic policies that preludedWorld War II, during which it was used for propaganda purposes. In1945, the American occupation authorities generally banned this genre.

Birth of modern manga (1945)

After its unconditional surrender, Japan would enter a new era. Entertainment emerged as an industry , responding to the psychological need for escape in the face of a harsh post-war period. The lack of resources of the general population required cheap means of entertainment, and the Tokyo magazine-based manga industry saw competitors emerge. Thus appeared the Kamishibai , a kind of legends of the blind man, who traveled through the villages offering his show in exchange for the purchase of candy. The Kamishibai did not compete with the magazines, but two other new distribution systems centered in Osaka :

• The pay libraries, which came to form a network of 30,000 loan centers that produced their own 150-page manga in the form of magazines or tomes.
• The red books, volumes of about two hundred pages of low-quality black-and-white paper, whose characteristic features were their red covers and their low price. This industry paid its artists salaries close to poverty, but in return it granted them wide creative freedom.

Osamu Tezuka , a twenty-something medical student passionate about Fleischer and Disney cartoons , would change the face of the Japanese comic with his first red book: The New Treasure Island , which suddenly sold between 400,000 and 800,000 copies, thank you to the application to the story of a cinematographic style that decomposed the movements into several vignettes and combined this dynamism with abundant sound effects.

Tezuka’s great success led him to Tokyo magazines, particularly the new Manga Shōnen ( 1947 ), which was the first children’s magazine dedicated exclusively to manga, and in which Tezuka published Astroboy . In these magazines he imposed his epic scheme in the form of a series of stories and diversified his production into multiple genres, of which his literary adaptations and manga for girls or shōjo manga stand out . In the mid-1950s Tezuka moved to a building in the capital called Tokiwasi , to which the new authors would make pilgrimages. There is room, however, for authors like Machiko Hasegawa, creator of the comic strip Sazae-san (1946-1974), Kon Shimizu or Shigeru Sugiura with a very different graphics, nothing Disney .

A year later, Shōnen disappeared and the red books died. Between them, and through the work of Osamu Tezuka, they had laid the pillars of the contemporary manga and anime industry.

The language of manga (1959-)

The triumph of manga magazines ended the Kamishibai , and many of its authors took refuge in the library system. Manga magazines were all for children and libraries found their niche by creating a manga geared towards a more adult audience: the gekiga . They abandoned the Disney style for a more realistic and photographic one and opened up to new more violent, eschatological or sensual genres such as horror , samurai stories , manga about yakuzas , eroticism , etc. Among them, it is worth highlighting Sanpei Shirato, who in 1964 would sponsor the only underground magazinefrom manga history, Garo . The competition in the graphic field of the gekiga forced the magazines to reduce the presence of the text, increasing the number of pages and the size to improve their vision.

With the beginning of the economic boom, the Japanese people demanded more manga. In response, one of the leading book publishers, Kōdansha , entered the magazine market in 1959 . Its title Shōnen Magazine changed the pattern of monthly to weekly, multiplying production and imposing authors the Stakhanovism , this time with millionaire salaries. Soon, other publishing groups such as Shueisha , Shōgakukan or Futabashathey would join him. This production system sacrificed color, paper quality and thematic sophistication, also taking away political criticism, but it would dramatically increase sales to astronomical figures and with them business profits, making manga the most important means of communication. from the country.

Otros importantes autores de estos años son Fujio Akatsuka , Tetsuya Chiba , Fujiko F. Fujio , Riyoko Ikeda , Kazuo Koike , Leiji Matsumoto , Shigeru Mizuki , Gō Nagai , Keiji Nakazawa , Monkey Punch y Takao Saito .

International expansion (1990s)

In 1988 , thanks to the success of the film version of Akira , based on the manga of the same name by cartoonist Katsuhiro Otomo , published in 1982 in the Young Magazine of the Kōdansha publishing house , the international diffusion of the manga began to increase explosively. The great success of this film in the West was preceded by a growing tradition of airing Japanese anime on European and American television networks. Already in the 60s , Osamu Tezuka had sold the broadcasting rights of his first Astro Boy to the American networkNBC achieving notable success among the children’s audience. Subsequently, the animated series Mazinger Z , Great Mazinger or Grendizer followed, the latter being a media outbreak in France, where it would be known as Goldorak . All of them were based on the comics of the mangaka Gō Nagai , current magnate of an empire of publishing distribution. In the 1980s, series of another nature began to stand out, such as The Super Dimension Fortress Macross , part of the compendium of series known in the West by Robotech , by Carl Macek , or Osamu Tezuka’s revision of Astroboybut on this occasion he returned to film in color and with more modern airs. To this was added the epic Gundam saga .

Another of the most relevant authors in this media heyday of the late eighties and early nineties, was the mangaka Akira Toriyama , creator of the famous series Dragon Ball and Dr. Slump , both characterized by a spicy, irreverent and absurd humor ( although the first one was characterized more by action content rather than humor). Such was the success of these two works that in some European countries they managed to unseat the US and national comics from the sales lists for many years. This phenomenon was more marked in Spain , where Dragon BallIt sold so many copies that it is considered the best-selling foreign-origin comic in history. In Japan itself , Shōnen Jump magazine — at specific times, especially during a few weeks that coincided with decisive episodes of the Dragon Ball series — increased its weekly circulation by 6 million copies. In Spain, the success of anime productions in the early 1990s led to an «editorial fever between 1993 and 1995» that filled specialized bookstores with all kinds of manga. ^{[ 13 ]}

Otros Importantes Autores De Estos Anos Son Shoji Kawamori , Tsukasa Hojo , Ryoichi Ikegami , Masakazu Katsura , Masamune Shirow , Mitsuru Adachi , Hirohiko Araki , Kohei Horikoshi , Yuzo Takada , Rumiko Takahashi , CLAMP , Jiro Taniguchi , Yoshihiro Togashi , Takehiko Inoue , Nobuhiro Watsuki , Tite Kubo , Eiichirō Oda , Masashi Kishimoto , Masami Kurumada ,Kosuke Fujishima , Naoko Takeuchi , Wataru Yoshizumi , Kentaro Miura , Yuu Watase , y Chiho Saito .

Exports

When some manga titles began to be translated, color was added and the format was inverted in a process known as «flopping» so that they could be read in the western way, that is, from left to right, also known as «mirroring.» . However, several creators (such as Akira Toriyama) did not approve that their works be modified in this way, since the essence of the original image and framing would be lost, and they demanded that they keep the original format. Soon, as a consequence of fan demand and creator demand, most publishers began offering the original right-to-left format, which has become a standard for manga readers outside of Japan.

The number of manga that have been translated into multiple languages ​​and sold in different countries continues to increase. Large publishing houses outside of Japan such as the American VIZ Media have emerged focused solely on the marketing of manga. French Glénat lives a second youth thanks to the publication of a Japanese comic. The markets that import more manga are France (this country being the second in the world in publishing comics of Japanese origin, behind only Japan itself ), the United States , Spain and the United Kingdom .

France stands out for having a highly varied market as far as manga is concerned. Many works published in France fall into genres that usually do not have much of a market in other countries outside of Japan, such as adult-oriented drama or experimental and alternative works. Artists like Jirō Taniguchi who were unknown to most Western countries have received much popularity in France . The diversity of manga in France is largely due to the fact that this country has a well-established market for comics known as Franco-Belgian . On the contrary, French authors , such as Jean Giraudthey have complained that » manga reaches Europe, but European comics are not going to Japan .» ^{[ 14 ]}

The TOKYOPOP company has become known in the United States, crediting the boom in manga sales, particularly for an audience of teenage girls. Many critics agree that his aggressive publications emphasize quantity over quality and are responsible for some translations of questionable quality.

Although the market for comics in Germany is small compared to other countries in Europe , manga has favored a certain boom. After an unforeseen early start in the 1990s , the manga movement picked up speed with the publication of Dragon Ball in 1997. Today, the manga maintains 75 to 80% of comic book sales published in Germany, with women outnumbering as readers. to males.

The company Chuang Yi publishes manga in English and Chinese in Singapore ; some of Chuang Yi’s titles are imported to Australia and New Zealand .

In Korea , manga can be found in most bookstores. However, the practice of reading manga «online» is common as it is cheaper than a printed version. Publishing houses like Daiwon and Seoul Munhwasa publish most of the manga in Korea.

In Thailand before 1992-1995 most of the manga available was coming out quickly, without a license, of low quality. Recently, licensed translations have started to appear, but they are still cheap compared to other countries. Manga publishers in Thailand include Vibunkij, Siam Inter Comics, Nation Edutainment, and Bongkouh.

In Indonesia , there has been rapid growth in industries of this type, becoming one of the largest markets for manga outside of Japan. The manga in Indonesia is published by Elex Media Komputindo, Acolyte, Gramedia.

Influence outside of Japan

The influence of manga is very noticeable in the original comic industry of almost all the countries of the Far East and Indonesia. To this day, manga has also consolidated in Western society due to the success achieved during the past decades, ceasing to be something exclusive to a country to become a global commercial and cultural phenomenon, in direct competition with the American narrative hegemony and European.

The clearest example of the international influence of manga is found in the so-called amerimanga , that is, the set of artists outside of Japan who have created comics under the influence of Japanese manga and anime but for an American audience. And it is that the manga has become so popular that many companies outside of Japan have launched their own titles based on the manga such as Antarctic Press, Oni Press, Seven Seas Entertainment, TOKYOPOP and even Archie Comics that maintain the same type of story and style than the original sleeves. The first of these titles hit the market in 1985 when Benn Dunn , founder of Antartic Press , launched Magazine and Ninja High School.. Artists such as the Americans Brian Wood (Demo) and Becky Cloonan as well as the Canadian Bryan Lee O’Malley (Lost At Sea) are largely influenced by the commercial manga style and have been praised for their work outside the circle of fans of manga and anime. While Antarctic Press referred to their works as «amerimanga,» not all of these manga-inspired works are created by Americans. Many of these artists who work at Seven Seas Entertainment on series like Last Hope or Amazing Agent Luna are of Filipino origin and TOKYOPOPhas a wide variety of Korean and Japanese artists in some of its titles like Warcraft and Princess Ai . Other American artists with manga influence in some of their works are Frank Miller , Scott McCloud and especially Paul Pop . The latter worked in Japan for Kōdansha on the manga anthology Afternoon and after being fired (due to an editorial change at Kodansha) he continued with the ideas he had developed for the anthology, publishing in the United States under the name Heavy Liquid.. His work therefore contains a great influence from manga without the international influences of otaku culture . In the other sense, the American publisher Marvel Comics even hired the Japanese mangaka Kia Asamiya for one of its flagship series, Uncanny X-Men .

In France there is the movement called » La nouvelle manga » started by Frédéric Boilet, which tries to combine the mature sophistication of manga with the artistic style of Franco-Belgian comics . While the movement involves Japanese artists, a handful of French artists have embraced Boilet’s idea.

In Europe, in fact, the Spanish «mangakas» are currently being developed at full speed. So much so, that foreign publishers are looking for Spanish mangakas to publish manga in their respective countries. Examples such as Sebastián Riera , Desireé Martínez , Studio Kôsen , and many others are gradually managing to position this new manga, called Iberomanga, or Euromanga, when it encompasses the authors who are making themselves known in Europe. In addition, there are many amateur artists who are exclusively influenced by the style of manga. Many of these artists have become very popular making small publications of comics and manga, mostly using the Internet to publicize their work.

However, the most important thing of all is that thanks to the emergence of manga in the West, the youth population of these regions has once again become massively interested in Comics as a medium, something that has not happened since the introduction of other forms of leisure such as TV.

The manga industry

The manga in Japan is a true mass phenomenon. A single piece of data serves to illustrate the magnitude of this phenomenon: In 1989, 38% of all books and magazines published in Japan were manga .

As can be assumed from this figure, manga is not just for young people. In Japan there are manga for all ages, professions and social strata, including housewives, office workers, teenagers, workers, etc. The manga erotic and pornographic ( hentai ) represents a quarter of total sales. Since 2006 exists in the city of Kyoto , the International Manga Museum of Kyoto , which is a novelty to being the first of its kind. ^{[ 15 ]}At present it has 300,000 articles and objects related to the matter, of which the 50,000 volumes in the museum’s collection are especially distinguished. ^{[ 15 ]}

Publications

And as for manga magazines, also known as «manga magazines» or «anthological magazines», it must be said that their runs are spectacular: at least ten of them exceed a million weekly copies. Shōnen Jump is the best-selling magazine, with 6 million copies each week. Shōnen Magazine follows with 4 million. Other well-known manga magazines are Shōnen Sunday , Big Comic Original , Shonen Gangan , Ribon , Nakayoshi , Margaret , Young Animal , Shojo Beat, and Lala .

Manga magazines are weekly or monthly publications of between 200 and 900 pages in which many different series concur, each consisting of between twenty and forty pages per issue. These magazines are often printed on poor quality black and white paper with the exception of the cover and usually a few front pages. They also contain several stories of four vignettes.

If the manga series turn out to be successful, they are published for several years. Its chapters can be collected in volumes of about 200 pages known as tankōbon , which compile 10 or 11 chapters that appeared before in a magazine. The paper and inks are of better quality, and whoever has been attracted by a particular story in the magazine will buy it when it goes on sale in tankōbon form . Recently «deluxe» versions have been printed for readers looking for a higher quality print and looking for something special.

As a guide, magazines cost around 200 to 300 yen (slightly less than 2 or 3 euros) and tankōbon cost around 400 yen (3.50 euros).

Another variant that has arisen due to the proliferation of file exchange over the Internet is the digital format that allows reading on a computer or similar; calling itself e-comic . The most commonly used formats for this are .cbr and .cbz, which are really compressed files (in rar and zip, respectively) with images in common formats (especially jpeg and gif) inside. They are also usually distributed as single images or also in pdf or lit format.

Typology

Manga demographics

The manga is classified according to the segment of the population to which they are directed. For this they use Japanese terms such as the following:

• Kodomo manga , aimed at young children.
• Shōnen manga , aimed at teenage boys.
• Shōjo manga , aimed at teenage girls.
• Seinen manga , aimed at young and old men.
• Josei manga , aimed at young and old women.

Genders

The classification of manga by genre becomes extremely difficult, given the richness of Japanese production, in which the same series can cover several genres and change over time. Hence, the classification by population segment is much more frequent. However, the western manga fan uses some Japanese terms that make it possible to designate some of the more specific sub-genres — not genres — and that do not have a precise equivalent in Spanish. They are as follows:

• Nekketsu : type of manga in which action scenes featuring an exalted character who defends values ​​such as friendship and self-improvement abound.

• Spokon : sports-themed manga. The term comes from contracting the English word «sports» and the Japanese «konjo», which means «courage», «courage».
• Gekiga : manga with an adult and dramatic theme.
• Mahō Shōjo : girls / boys or boys who have some magical object or special power.
• Yuri : love story between girls.
• Yaoi : love story between boys.
• Harem : female group, but with a boy as a co-star.
• Mecha : robots have an important presence, often gigantic and manned by humans.
• Ecchi : humorous with erotic content.
• Jidaimono : set in feudal Japan.
• Gore : anime genre assigned to those series that have high graphic violence, commonly these are horror. Literally spilled blood.

Manga room

Typical Japanese fair where people who are fond of manga can enjoy their hobby.

Fans dress up in Cosplay , these fairs were only typical of Japan , but they spread to all continents.

Thematic genres

Another way to classify the manga is by the theme, style or gag that is used as the center of the story. Thus, we have:

• Progressive — Animation made for the purpose of emulating Japanese originality. Examples: Serial Experiments Lain , Neon Genesis Evangelion , Paranoia Agent .
• Cyberpunk : the story takes place in a world where technological advances take a crucial part in the story, along with some degree of disintegration or radical change in the social order. Examples in the category .
• Ecchi : Presents erotic or risque situations taken to comedy. Examples in the category .
• Furry : means hairy, made up of anthropomorphic animals, which is the combination of human and animal traits.
• Gekiga : term used for manga aimed at an adult audience, although it has nothing to do with hentai. The term. literally. means «dramatic images». Example: Memories of yesterday , The grave of the fireflies .
• Gore : literally bloody manga. Examples in the category .
• Harem : many women are attracted to the same man. Examples in the category .
• Reverse Harem : many men are attracted to the same woman.
• Hentai : literally means «pervert», and it is the pornographic manga. Examples in the category .
• Isekai : story where the protagonist is transported to another world, a place where the story usually unfolds.
• Kemono : humans with animal features or vice versa. Example: Tokyo Mew Mew , Black Cat , Inuyasha .
• Mahō shōjo : magical girl, witch-girl or with magical powers. Examples: Corrector Yui , Sailor Moon , Card Captor Sakura , Mahō Shōjo Lyrical Nanoha , Kamikaze Kaitō Jeanne , Ultra Maniac .
• Mecha: robots gigantes. Ejemplos: Gundam, Mazinger Z, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Code Geass.
• Meitantei : it’s a detective story. Examples: Detective Conan , Death Note , Matantei Loki Ragnarok .
• Fantastic Victoriana : the story follows a boy / girl from the 19th century who usually has some relationship with some religious or governmental organization and who faces supernatural energies. Examples: D.Gray-man , Pandora Hearts , Kuroshitsuji .
• Historical Victorian : unlike the fantastic, the historical one shows us events that occurred in the 19th century, with a touch of romance or comedy. Examples: Emma , Hetalia: Axis Powers .
• Virtual reality : in this case the protagonists are inside an online video game (RPG) and follow a story that can vary greatly. Examples: .hack , Accel World , Sword Art Online .
• Survival game : this genre is quite popular and always has a lot of gore . Stories of this type deal with various characters who for various reasons are forced to participate in a survival game by either killing each other or teaming up with other characters. Examples: Gantz , Mirai Nikki , Btooom! , Deadman Wonderland , Battle Royale .
• Romakome : it is a romantic comedy. Examples: Lovely Complex , School Rumble , Love Hina , Mayoi Neko Overrun! .
• Sentai : In anime, it refers to a group of superheroes. Example: Cyborg 009 .
• Shōjo-ai or Yuri : homosexual romance between girls. They differ the first from the second in content, whether explicit or not. Examples in the category .
• Shōnen-ai and Yaoi : homosexual romance between boys or men. They differ the first from the second in content, whether explicit or not. Examples in the category .
• Spokon : sports stories. Examples in category
• Shota : homosexual or heterosexual romance between minor children, this can also occur between a minor child and an adult. Examples: Boku no Pico and Papa to Kiss in the Dark .
• Lolicon : homosexual or heterosexual romance between minor girls, this can also occur between a minor girl and an adult. Example: Kodomo no Jikan , Ro-Kyu-Bu! .
• Kinshinsōkan : Romantic / erotic relationships between members of the same family. Examples: Aki Sora , Papa to Kiss in the Dark , Yosuga no Sora .

See also

• Dōjin
• Dōjinshi
• Manhwa
• Best Selling Sleeves
• Kyoto International Manga Museum
• Nekketsu
• His
• Gekiga

References

Bibliography

• GARCÍA, Santiago (2010). The graphic novel , Bilbao , Astiberri Ediciones .
• Santiago, José Andrés (2010). Sleeve. From the floating painting to the Japanese vignette , Santiago de Compostela , Editorial DX5 Digital & Graphic. ISBN 978-84-614-1666-0 .

Recommended

• Berndt, Jacqueline. (nineteen ninety six). The manga phenomenon . Martínez Roca editions. Barcelona (Spain), 1996. ISBN 84-270-2157-7 (Translation of: Phänomen Manga . Edition Q, Berlin, 1995).
• Manga mania (Fascicles) . (2004). Thirty-five volumes. European Publishing House for Promotion and Promotion. Barcelona , Spain. ISBN 84-920786-0-X .
• Bermúdez, Trajano. Mangavisión, guide to Japanese comics , Editorial Glénat (Library of Dr. Vertigo No. 1).
• Moliné, Alfonso. The great book of manga , Viñetas Collection, Editorial Glénat. 280 pages. ISBN 978-84-8449-279-5
• Monthly and bimonthly specialized magazines, notably Minami and Animedia , from Ares Informática.
• Gravett, Paul. Manga: 60 Years of Japanese Comics. Nueva York: Collins Design, 2004. ISBN 1-85669-391-0.
• Schodt, Frederik L. Dreamland Japan: Writings on Modern Manga. Berkeley, Calif.: Stone Bridge Press, 1996. ISBN 1-880656-23-X.
• Schodt, Frederik L. Manga! Manga!: The World of Japanese Comics. Nueva York: Kodansha International, 1983. ISBN 870117521, ISBN 4-7700-2305-7.
• Phoenix study. (2001). How to draw manga . Martínez Roca editions. Madrid Spain. ISBN 84-270-2338-3 .
• Camera, Sergi. Duran, Vanessa. The Manga Drawing . Parramón Editions. Barcelona, ​​Spain, 2006. ISBN 978-84-342-2319-6 .

external links